By News Sniffers Reporter
The much-hyped constitutional showdown on Bill No. 7 of 2025 has come and gone, and with it, the inflated mythology around Lusaka lawyer Sakwiba Sikota’s supposed legal brilliance.
What was billed as a moment of reckoning for the government instead turned into a masterclass in preparation, substance, and constitutional literacy delivered by Foreign Affairs and International Relations Minister, Mulambo Haimbe, SC. 
In one sitting, the Minister didn’t just defeat Sakwiba Sikota—he dismantled the exaggerated opposition narrative around Bill 7 and exposed how shallow the criticism really is.
From the outset Haimbe set the tone. When Sikota challenged President Hakainde Hichilema to a debate, Haimbe calmly and correctly reframed the matter: this was not a political rally but a legal and constitutional issue.
As a lawyer, Haimbe, who is Lusaka Central Member of Parliament stepped forward. That alone signalled confidence. More telling, however, was Sikota’s retreat from his own bravado—insisting the debate be held in the controlled confines of a television studio rather than before a live public audience.
The shift raised legitimate questions: was this about public enlightenment or managing optics?Haimbe agreed to the studio setting, making one thing clear—substance matters more than scenery. When the cameras rolled, substance was exactly what Sikota failed to produce. For a lawyer who frequently parades his State Counsel status, Sikota arrived disarmingly unprepared.
Faced with probing questions from the moderator, Costa Mwansa, Sikota could not anchor his arguments in specific constitutional provisions. Instead, he leaned on hearsay, video clips, and second-hand quotations—“even Justin said this”—as if journalism commentary could substitute for constitutional text. It couldn’t. And it didn’t.
By contrast, Haimbe came armed with the Constitution itself: pages, paragraphs, clauses, and sub-clauses. He spoke the language of the law because he had done the work. The result was a constitutional Technical Knock Out (TKO).
While Sikota gestured broadly at imagined dangers, at one time giving away his discontentment by drinking water, Haimbe calmly explained what Bill 7 actually amends, what it does not, and how court judgments were being deliberately misread and weaponised.
The irony was glaring. Sikota repeatedly addressed President Hichilema—who was not even in the studio—while failing to engage the man sitting right across from him. It was as if performance had replaced persuasion.
In the end, even the moderator could not be convinced by a single section of the Constitution cited by Sikota, because none were properly cited at all.
At almost the same time, a Ministry of Justice team led by Haimbe was before a Parliamentary Select Committee, systematically dismantling the same misinformation and disinformation being spread outside.
Two fronts, same outcome: the facts prevailed. The hysteria didn’t.
This moment should matter to Zambians for a bigger reason.
Under President Hichilema, democratic space has expanded. No cadres stormed the studio. No violence disrupted the exchange. Two opposing views clashed openly, ideas against ideas. That is democracy in practice—not press statements, not alarmist radio monologues, but informed debate.
Yes, Bill 7 may require broader civic sensitisation. That is a fair point. But what Sikota and his allies have done is something else entirely: inflate fear without evidence, substitute noise for law, and hope repetition becomes truth. It won’t.The comparison with the famous 1960 Richard Nixon–John F. Kennedy debate is unavoidable.
Many radio listeners thought Nixon won on substance. Television viewers saw something else entirely: a calm, confident Kennedy versus a visibly uncomfortable Nixon. Image, preparation, and medium mattered.
In the Bill 7 debate, Haimbe was Kennedy—composed, grounded, presidential in bearing—while Sikota resembled Nixon under the hot lights: uncertain, defensive, exposed.
The lesson is clear. If the opposition is serious, let the debate continue—but with people who have actually done their homework.
Bring in other loud naysayers like NGOCC’s Beauty Katebe and members of the clergy like Archbishop Chama and Monsieur Alick Banda, who casually label the amendments a “fraud” without legal grounding. Let them debate, clause by clause, in the open. Enough of megaphone activism.
Zambia deserves informed arguments.
Zambians would lest be assured that they would be clowning themselves to the laughing stock category.
In the final analysis, the government won—not because of numbers or power, but because of preparation and facts.
Bill 7 survived scrutiny, which Haimbe defended admirably.
The opposition, represented by one judicial Pharisee Sakwiba Sikota SC, did not.
The debate is not just over; it has been decisively settled.
